when winning, but hates himself when losing or mediocre.  Humble believer enjoys himself when winning, losing or mediocre. Proud believer loves himself conditionally, based on performance.  Humble believer loves himself unconditionally, just as he is, just as Jesus loves him. Proud believer is selfish/self-absorbed, loves others conditionally, and is indifferent to Jesus.  Humble believer loves…

he can help others find happiness in this life.   A fool is confident he can engineer happiness for himself, even though he’s pathetically confused about it all, and doesn’t realize it.   Only a dependent asks Jesus for help in helping others find happiness.   Only a dependent ask Jesus about everything in his own life.   Fools…

is when the Spirit of Jesus opens my eyes to see how pathetically helpless I am — powerless to make my life work, to engineer happiness for myself and those I love. I see this in my saner moments, and then I’m actually thankful for my pathetic helplessness. And enjoy it! Am comforted by it.…

My flesh loves to get LIFE from ministry success, and so Jesus frequently thwarts my plans/efforts so the pain of the failure snaps me back to reality, where freshly convicted of my sin, I also realize that He is lovingly retraining me in a better way to live: dependent on Him, not needing any performance…

to a shepherd.  Why would any shepherd, want to be a dumb sheep?   Ultimate humiliation.   Moving from being the lofty, respected, wise and resourceful independent, all the way down to the most dependent of all: a dumb sheep, not having enough sense to come in out of the rain, needing to be shepherded, needing to…

and Jerry Sandusky, love seeing others as evil/wicked, love feeling outraged at the failings/weaknesses/sins of others, so I feel superior, so I feel good about myself.   At least my flesh loves it.   ShepherdDave loves it.   CompetitiveDave loves it.   JudgeDave loves it. But when the Spirit freshly opens my eyes to the ways I’m just like…

when I’m JudgeDave, clear-sighted about the weaknesses/failings of others — especially the opponents of my favorite sports teams.  JudgeDave is always blind to his own sin, always leaning on his own understanding, always wise in his own eyes.   Only when the Spirit of Jesus freshly convicts me of my sin of judgeship/independence/orphanhood, am I freshly…

whenever I have high ownership for my relationships, ministry, favorite sports teams, my next used car/motorcycle I’ll purchase, my health, my investments.  And because folks have been praying for more Jesus-dependency in my life, I’m finding it easier to spot the cancer of independency/shepherdness that leads to high ownership of areas of idolatry that are…

shepherds are losers and sheep are winners.   Why?  Because He created us humans to be dependents, not independents.   Pride is only a problem of shepherds.   And self-righteousness.   And feeling superior to others.   And irritation, impatience.   And control-freakness.  And fear.   And discouragement.  Why?   In the right-side-up kingdom of this world, we shepherds think we know what’s…

trying to be an independent/CEO/orphan/shepherd, is extremely heavy, burdensome.  A Curse, weighing down the sheep: we get stressed, exhausted, from having the weight of the world on our shoulders.  Why do we sheep do this?  We believe a lie, that we’ll be happier functioning as shepherds/somebodies, rather than lowly sheep.  Common.  Ordinary.  Nobodies.  Losers, by comparison.…